Hungary and the Crisis of July 1914

Abstract

Albert Sorel described the Austrian Empire as having not a government but a diplomatic service that also administered. The Habsburg dynasty traditionally conducted business with an eye turned towards Europe; and in Austria-Hungary foreign policy had a relevance to internal problems that was more immediate than in any other European state. In the years before 1914 men loyal to the Monarchy came increasingly to feel that their political debility could be cured only through foreign policy. No-one had much faith in the prospects for purely internal reform: the nationality problem was too complex to be solved merely through an emperor's longevity. Real patriots hoped that some great stroke of foreign policy would re-awaken the loyalty of the Habsburg peoples and the respect of the Monarchy's neighbours; and thus, while European statesmen believed that a civil war in AustriaHungary would produce general conflict, official circles in AustriaHungary calculated that general conflict in Europe was their only alternative to civil war. The mood of governing ministers in Vienna was a desperate one 'better a terrible end than an endless terror', the phrase ran and their quarrel with Serbia was endowed with a bitterness and irrationality that made compromise impossible. In itself, squalid bickering with Balkan states was an unworthy occupation for men who sat at Metternich's desk; but Serbia, with her challenge to Habsburg rule in Bosnia-Herzegovina, seemed to question the Monarchy's existence as a great power as well as aggravating the South Slav problem. The Monarchy's very existence depended, it was thought, on its European position; and a small Balkan state thus became an object on which the Habsburg dynasty could demonstrate its continuing vigour. However, even the 'daring stroke' of July 1914 showed how far the Monarchy had declined. The strains that eventually broke the